Bill Gates May Soon Lose His Spot As The World's Richest Person

Prime time for Jeff Bezos.

It's a jungle out there, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is poised to be the new king ― of the billionaires, anyway.

Bezos is on the cusp of overtaking Bill Gates as the world's richest man, buoyed by the strong performance of Amazon stock in recent months and the (comparatively) smaller gains of Gates' Microsoft during the same period.

Bezos owns about 17 percent of Amazon, which closed above $1,000 per share on Friday for the first time ever, up from around $850 per share in mid-March. At those prices, that makes Amazon worth more than two Walmarts.

From the beginning of the year until now, Bezos has added more than $20 billion to his net worth, according to the Bloomberg index.

The only other billionaire to approach those gains is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who added $15.6 billion to his net worth in the first half of the year. Worth $65.6 billion, he ranks fifth on Bloomberg's list.

Ahead of Zuckerberg and not far behind Bezos is Spanish businessman Amancio Ortega, who co-founded Zara ― the world's largest fashion retailer ― and is worth approximately $85.9 billion, followed by business magnate Warren Buffett ($74.6 billion).